Deux hommes dans Manhattan

Melville keeps the story going pretty well, but this is a weak film compared to his best efforts. Shot partly on location in New York, and also in a Paris studio, with many of the supporting players having had to learn their parts phonetically (Monique Hennessy is particularly clumsy with her lines), this is a noir that shows its low budget and lack of inspiration in places. The attempt to find the missing diplomat ends in a woman's apartment. We get a five minute speech from the two reporters's boss about how great Fevre-Berthier was, it's a dull scene.

If you are looking for a noir with verve and great music, why not try Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, with REAL actors and Miles Davis's great score.

At the UN today, the French representative didn't show though few made much notice of it. However, a French reporter is given the assignment to look for the guy and see why he disappeared. To help, he gets the help of a super-sleazy photographer, Pierre, and the pair bounce about New York following leads. They think this well respected man might have a mistress--and several photos of him with ladies might help them locate the guy.

Eventually they locate the man and then comes an important decision- -what to do with this information. The photographer, naturally, wants to make the most of it and spread sensationalistic photos everywhere. The other guy is decent and tries to get his new partner to do the right thing.

I love the films of Jean-Pierre Melville--at least up until this one. It's not a terrible film but nothing like the great film noir features Melville made (mostly in the 60s and 70s). But it did have a homemade feel--cheap and definitely more French New Wave than his usual more polished work. Lots of cheap stock footage of New York was used and so many of the English-speaking actors sounded anything but like New Yorkers. French audiences probably wouldn't have recognized this, but to an American the accents often don't fit or sometimes sound like foreigners TRYING to sound American...and failing. Mildly interesting and clearly the last portion is by far the most interesting. Plus, being a French film it has some nudity, lesbianism and other plot elements you just wouldn't have found in an American film of the time.

For a director whose best films are absolute masterclasses in tone, this one takes a while to find its voice.

A French UN delegate goes missing in New York City, and a French reporter (played by Melville himself) and his photographer friend go on the hunt by tracking down three women, one of whom is suspected to be his mistress.

I love a good mystery, especially one shot on location in late-50's New York, and the "over the course of a single night" conceit can be delightful. But the characters initially read flat, and the stakes feel nonexistent until we get towards the end of the story. Once certain characters' true colors are revealed, it becomes a treatise on the moral responsibility of journalists and storytellers, and, Melville being Melville, French WWII resistance comes into play. It's not terribly nuanced, but it's an effective moral tale, revealing the same sort of deep humanism that underlies Army of Shadows.

Visually, it's a strange, inconsistent blend. Much feels amateurish, like a quickly-shot newsreel, which isn't inconsistent with the sorts of noir and noir-tinged 40's and 50's American urban films Melville is riffing on (The Naked City looms particularly large). But it doesn't feel quite in the wheelhouse a director whose use of meticulous, almost meditative cinematography is a distinct calling card.

That said, there are some incredible shots, including a slow tracking shot in a jazz studio, which is now near the top of my "scenes featuring musical performances where it's clear they're actually playing the music" list.

Overall, it's a less essential entry in the Jean-Pierre Melville catalog. But if you've watched the big ones, and want to see a great director directing himself in a good movie, check it out.

As a native New Yorker, I found the movie a bit creepy. Melville's image of Manhattan is too perfect, a city where the streets are seamless, glistening ribbons of asphalt, where the ashtrays have smoked cigarette butts stacked neatly in them with no sign of ash, where even the glass in telephone booths on the streets are spotless. When a French diplomat disappears and reporter Jean-Paul Melville in his first credited screen role -- his audition must have impressed the director -- is set on his trail, he doesn't realize he himself is being followed. Meanwhile I was looking for a scrap of litter on the street, a straphanger on the subway whose hat and soul have been battered by a tough day.... nothing. Everyone is perfectly dressed, everything is perfectly clean, everyone looks and acts like a serious adult. You should have seen the motley assortment on the E train this afternoon.

Finally, about a quarter hour in, Melville goes to the apartment of his cameraman, Pierre Grasset, and the wallpaper outside his apartment was poorly hung. Aha! I thought, a creature of the demi-monde, someone who cuts corners, was looking out for himself, who had pictures of the young women that the diplomat.... associated with. Off they went into the night, still followed by a mysterious trailer: Melville, the moral reporter, and Grasset, the corrupt guide. I knew they would find their prey; but how moral would Melville be and how corrupt Grasset? And who was following them and why? Who was the hero of this story and exactly what was the Great White Whale they were following?

This movie is Melville's own personal fantasy, set in a fantasy New York glamorous beyond belief to anyone who has dwelt in the real one. He had been born Jean-Pierre Grumbach, and had adopted a new surname in admiration of Herman Melville. He had played Bartleby and written and directed his own movies and now was going on his own voyage to find out if he could be the hero of his own tale.

French director Jean-Pierre Melville is known for directing several classic films such as Bob le flambeur (1956) and Le samouraï (1967), but he also did some acting over the course of his career. However, his only starring role was in his own 1959 crime film Two Men in Manhattan, where he plays a journalist named Moreau who is assigned to find out why a French diplomat named Fèvre-Berthier was absent from a United Nations council meeting. With his photographer friend Delmas (Pierre Grasset), Moreau suspects a female lover might be involved and follows clues from woman to woman in the night of New York City, a place that never sleeps. There also seems to be a car following Moreau and Delmas...

Said to be a combination of American film noir and the budding French New Wave movement, Two Men in Manhattan very neatly utilizes the good sides of both styles. The urban street views and skyscrapers look excellent in the glow of the bright ad signs on store marquees and the dark, stark lighting set up for interior scenes is a joy to the eye too. The laid-back jazz soundtrack is highly enjoyable, creating a mood softer than in hard boiled detective noirs, even though the seedy locations would fit in such flicks seamlessly as well.

A lot of the film's charm lies on the shoulders of the two protagonists, who suit their roles splendidly. Melville's sad-looking appearance matches his character's melancholic but righteous attitude perfectly, while Grasset makes a great pairing for him as the greedy and amoral Delmas, prone to drinking and sleeping around. Ultimately their opposing approaches to the ethics of journalism are what create one of the main themes of the film; namely, examining the responsibility of the press when publishing stories of delicate nature. Besides the lead duo, the supporting actors do a good job too, from a suicidal stage actress Judith Nelson (Ginger Hall) to a jaded cabaret dancer Bessie Reed (Michèlle Bailly) and a jazz singer Virginia Graham (Glenda Leigh) who we get to see recording a haunting song in a studio.

All in all, when a film successfully combines a totally smooth and cool atmosphere with suspense and humour like Two Men in Manhattan does, it just cannot be anything but highly enjoyable. The movie is simply thoroughly entertaining, but since the technical elements are also very skilfully created, there is no reason to skip this one if you're even remotely interested in film noir and French cinema.